


Unpopular Opinions

by fyeahblackturtlenecks



Category: Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Canon Autistic Character, Gen, Internalized Transphobia, Jasnah has some interesting opinions where certains social constructs are concerned, also, demiboy Renarin, he doesn't quite have the vocabulary to state that but yeah, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-10 19:20:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4404167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fyeahblackturtlenecks/pseuds/fyeahblackturtlenecks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Renarin needed a break and ended up getting a second opinion on certain concepts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. As Everyone Says

**Author's Note:**

> Nonbinary/Demiboy Renarin is one of my favorite headcanons, so of course I had to write the thing. Also, part 2 is not going to be nearly as optimistic as this, and I apologize in advance.)

The first thing that Renarin noticed about the library was that it was quiet. The second thing he noticed was that it smelled nice. It was calming, nothing like the crowded banquet hall where he was supposed to be. The banquet hall was too loud, and the spicy-sweet scent particular to feasts permeated every breath he took, and trying to remember when to smile at people or when to make eye contact made his chest feel tight because what if he got it wrong--

So he’d slipped away to the first quiet place he could find.

Renarin couldn’t remember ever having been to the library before. Of course, it had always been there--House Kholin, as a particularly powerful one, had always been able to afford to maintain it. But it was a place for women, for the scholars of the family. If Renarin wanted a story read to him, one of the clerks would bring it and one of his female relatives would read it to him.

The room seemed mostly empty, everyone having gone to the feast. That was okay. Renarin knew what would happen if someone were to catch him. They would tell Father, and Father would probably be disappointed, and word would get out that the “younger son” was only eight years old and already _wrong_ in addition to useless. He didn’t quite understand why, but apparently boys and girls did different things. Boys fought, boys became highprinces, like Adolin would. Girls read and studied, like his cousin Jasnah. Renarin didn’t quite understand why, or if he even knew exactly what “boy” was supposed to feel like, but everyone he’d asked had told him that that was just how it worked, so he had stopped asking. Better to follow the rules and not understand than bring it up and raise questions as to why it wasn’t registering.

He raised a hand as he made his way between the shelves, running his fingers over the spines of the books he could reach. They were leather-bound and clearly well-cared for, smooth against his fingers. He paused at the end of one of the shelves, and stood on tiptoes, taking a book down at random. It was a thicker volume, and heavy, and he ended up sitting crosslegged on the floor with it open in front of him. The text was clearly written out, and he liked the way the letters looked, even though he didn’t know what they said. With the book open, the smell that Renarin had noticed when he’d first come in was slightly stronger as he leaned closer to inspect the text.

He turned the pages slowly as he ran his fingers over each one. The paper had a subtle roughness to it, a bit like the top of the box that his mother’s chain had been in before Adolin had started using the chain for good luck. Renarin had taken the box for himself, now that it wasn’t needed, and he had it with him now, in his pocket.

“Renarin?”

Anxiety poured into his chest and filled it as he scrambled to his feet and turned around, nearly tripping over the book in his haste. His cousin, Jasnah, stood in front of him, a small stack of books cradled in her safearm. “I thought….everyone…I wasn’t reading!” He finally managed in a voice that only escalated in pitch as his chest got tighter.

Jasnah’s eyebrows knit together and she sighed as she knelt down, putting down her own stack of books to to close the one Renarin had left out. She set it aside but stayed down, trying to look Renarin in the eye, or trying to. He couldn’t make himself meet her gaze. “Renarin, I’m not upset with you,” she said softly. “Do you feel that you’ve done something wrong?”

Renarin nodded slowly, one hand going to his pocket and gripping the box tightly enough for the corners to dig into his palm. “Boys aren’t supposed to look at books,” he said quietly.

Jasnah’s lips tightened into a thin line as she stacked the books and picked them up again. “I’m not supposed to have a Soulcaster, but I have one,” she said. “Things only apply to certain groups of people if you decide that they do. Do you want to learn to read?”

Renarin shifted from foot to foot, taking out the box and running his fingers over the top. “I’m not supposed to,” he said again. “Everyone says boys don’t read.”

“Everyone saying something doesn’t mean that they’re all correct,” Jasnah said. “And things that are true for some people aren’t true for other people. Do you think boys shouldn’t learn to read? Give me _your_ answer, not everyone else’s.”

Renarin opened and closed the box a few times, still nervous, but Jasnah hadn’t gotten mad at him, so he could still breathe. He chewed at his bottom lip for a moment or two and nodded, still looking down. “Please don’t tell Father,” he said softly.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Renarin,” said Jasnah, finally standing up. “But I’ll keep it between us.” She looked down at him, then held out her freehand. “I can take you back to my desk, and we can start right now.”

Renarin took her hand and followed her through the shelves to a series of desks at the back, one of which bore stacks of books and papers. “Don’t we both have to go back to the feast?” he asked, though the thought of going back to the overwhelming amount of smells and sounds was unpleasant at best.

“I don’t believe we would miss too much, at this point in the evening,” said Jasnah with a small smile. “Besides, it’s nice to get get away from all of the people after a while.” She sat down, shifting so that she was only taking up half of the chair, and shuffled through the papers on the desk until she had a blank one and a pencil. She tapped at the empty space next to her with her safehand. “Come here, we can start with the basics.”

Renarin smiled, just a little bit, before scrambling up next to her. 


	2. An Objective History of Kholinar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took a good thing and ruined it.

He should have outgrown this by now, this crushing need to escape that filled his chest and twisted at his lungs. He had always been the one to leave when it got too hard. Of course, he’d been fully aware of the fact that it wouldn’t be an available solution every time. Eventually, there would be nowhere to go.

Renarin hadn’t been at the meeting. It was one of the perks of lacking influence among the Alethi nobility--he didn’t have to face the nerve-wracking, complicated mess that was the ten highprinces and the closest in each one’s service all in one room together.

But not having to force himself into the meetings also meant that news got to him later than it did to everyone else. Of course, that was a blessing sometimes, when ignorance could be considered bliss. Messy minor details, who was annoyed with whom, or what people had said about Adolin’s latest attempt at courtship, all came to Renarin largely through Adolin filling him in after meetings, or rumors in the warcamp. Some things, though, were better heard firsthand.

He sank down onto the edge of his bed, knees weak and shaky in a way that had nothing to do with the blood weakness. Adolin’s words were still fresh in his mind, and Renarin could think of little else than _“Jasnah’s ward arrived at the meeting today. Jasnah...isn’t coming with her.”_ He looked from his closed bedroom door, to the open box he held in his lap, to the edge of the bed where the mattress met the frame. His chest still felt tight, and he still wanted to leave; it felt as if the guards outside the door were watching him. They’d been told not to come in, but they were still there, and that made everything far too crowded. Renarin slid off the bed onto his knees, pushing the mattress just slightly out of alignment to reveal the corner of a book cover.

He pulled it free, settling onto the floor with it in his lap. The text along the spine made sense to him now. The book was _“An Objective History of Kholinar.”_ He must have read it hundreds of times by now, but his first attempt at it had been in the Kholin estate library, with Jasnah after he’d run away from another feast. Renarin dragged his fingers over the cover, its leather softer than it had been that night, but the texture still comforting. The pages still smelled nice as he flicked through them, the text was still clear and easy to read, now that he knew what the letter meant.

He closed the book, the tightness forcing its way up until tears started to fall despite his best efforts. Men, especially the Blackthorn’s sons, weren’t supposed to cry. They weren’t supposed to know how to read either, but then again, Renarin didn’t feel like one, not completely, and the only person who had known about it was at the bottom of the ocean, according to what Adolin had quoted of Jasnah’s ward. He tried to take deep breaths, and quiet ones as he pulled the book closer into his chest.

“Renarin?” It was Dalinar’s voice, followed by a knock on the door.

Renarin jumped at the sound, then shoved the book back under his mattress and covered it again. Taking a last deep breath, he wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand and opened the door. “Father?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were alright, or...as alright as possible. I know you two were close…” The space between Dalinar’s brows wrinkled as he spoke. He raised a hand, as if to put it to Renarin’s shoulder, but lowered it again as Renarin shifted back.

Touch wasn’t an option right now, he still felt too shaky. He curled his arms around his ribcage, as if it would stop his breaths being so shaky, so telling. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine,” he said quickly. Jasnah had always been _fine._ She’d dealt with things. She’d want him to do the same.


End file.
